Anybody use G2,and is it worth an investment.
Using 9.6 with FPrime.The reason i ask is that F Prime is limited on LW lighting.

bjornkn

05-05-2009, 03:56 AM

FPrime causes a lot of crashes with LW9.6 using nodes, in addition to not being compatible with new lights, hdInstance, FiberFX etc. I use it very rarely nowadays, and always save everything before opening it, and always closing it before doing anything with nodes.
I never use G2 any longer.

pooby

05-05-2009, 04:12 AM

FPrime causes a lot of crashes with LW9.6 using nodes, in addition to not being compatible with new lights, hdInstance, FiberFX etc. I use it very rarely nowadays,

Me neither..

Oh! You meant Fprime not 9.6

biliousfrog

05-05-2009, 04:14 AM

G2 is great with FPrime but I haven't even installed it since 9.3.1 so I don't know how well it works. I don't think that it's been updated to 64bit. I have missed some of the features (such as the SSS - much more intuitive and predictable than LW's SSS nodes) but many of them are available natively in 9.6 now.

Mattoo

05-05-2009, 08:00 AM

G2 is 64bit but I've had no luck with it and 9.6 (it runs but the results are not good). I could really use it too, primarily for use with Sasquatch (which thankfully still works!). FiberFX isn't still quite as good as Sas in my opinion.

I may go back to 9.3.1 for Sas and G2.

vpii

05-05-2009, 08:18 AM

Strange I use G2 64bit on 9.6 everyday without problems. I think it is a great plugin to have.

jasonwestmas

05-05-2009, 08:52 AM

Since the area and spot lights look really wrong with G2 in 9.6-64bit, I don't use G2.
There are some strange shadow issues in 9.3.1-64bit using G2. On top of it all I have been getting faster and cleaner results just using Nodes. I think Worley fixed some more bugs as of late so I may give that a try.

Mattoo

05-05-2009, 08:58 AM

Strange I use G2 64bit on 9.6 everyday without problems. I think it is a great plugin to have.

Are you using the G2 shader or the pixel filter only? The pixel filter stuff seems to work okay here but the shader just gives me madness.

vpii

05-05-2009, 09:07 AM

I am not really using to much nodes so maybe there are some issues there. I use G2 mainly for each surface for boosting or pulling back saturation and controling how much shadow. What I like is you can have generic light rigs and surface presets, play with the master settings in G2 and your done. Gives you I think an extra way to make fast setups. Everthing can be done without G2 but just not as fast.

jasonwestmas

05-05-2009, 11:22 AM

Just a quick update on my experience with the latest G2 and Sas updates. They crash in 9.3.1. I think they were tweaked for use in 9.5 and 9.6 so try to use em in there.

I was able to fix the shadow issue with G2 in 9.3.1, not sure what was wrong with it but it works now.

Thought I would mention some disadvantages with G2 and Sasquatch just so you are aware. The AA in G2 doesn't work well with the perspective camera because I think it needs the multi-pass Classic camera AA. You'll get some missing pixels for Sasquatch around the boarder of your meshes some times with the perspective camera. I think that is an AA issue as well. So that also means no photoreal Motion Blur with G2 and Sas, and of course you can't use the nice AA of the Perspective camera. The other major thing that tends to be a drag is that when rendering a head you have to use a spot light that only lights the hair and an area light on the skin of the head. Sas needs a spotlight to cast self shadowing for realism and you need an area light to get soft shadows on your skin. This also will require the use of a hair shadow mesh to cast shadows on the skin of the model. You hide the shadow mesh from the camera of course, with cast shadows enabled. You can use the Sasquatch Shadow Shader but that mean you must use shadow mapping for the skin. Shadow mapping on an animated head does not look very good imo.

lwaddict

05-05-2009, 11:30 AM

There are some outstanding books and videos out there that teach you lighting techniques to the point that you shouldn't need G2.

It's a great little plugin for it's day but you might want to start pushing forward.

jasonwestmas

05-05-2009, 11:43 AM

There are some outstanding books and videos out there that teach you lighting techniques to the point that you shouldn't need G2.

It's a great little plugin for it's day but you might want to start pushing forward.

Yeah, haven't needed the G2 after 9.3. ime. It is more Fprime friendly than some of nodal's features however.

Mattoo

05-05-2009, 11:45 AM

There are some outstanding books and videos out there that teach you lighting techniques to the point that you shouldn't need G2.

It's a great little plugin for it's day but you might want to start pushing forward.

Yeah, I agree in principle but you're missing the point of G2 - speed! I've done a fair bit of nodal noodling and I really miss the G2/FPrime combo of old.

jasonwestmas

05-05-2009, 11:54 AM

Yeah, I agree in principle but you're missing the point of G2 - speed! I've done a fair bit of nodal noodling and I really miss the G2/FPrime combo of old.

Yeah I probably would use that combo more just because of Fprime. Just wish Sas worked with Fprime so I could motion blur it correctly. (Frames won't match up otherwise last time I tried to composite).

monfoodoo

05-05-2009, 11:57 AM

If not G2,then i wish they would fix FPrime to work well with 9.6.I do constant texture checking on my models and FPrime is the way.But it has those light and nodes issues.Crash,Crash.Playing safe all the time is hinderence.

jasonwestmas

05-05-2009, 12:01 PM

If not G2,then i wish they would fix FPrime to work well with 9.6.I do constant texture checking on my models and FPrime is the way.But it has those light and nodes issues.Crash,Crash.Playing safe all the time is hinderence.

Time is still money and G2 still offers a few unique time saving features.

adamredwoods

05-05-2009, 03:09 PM

If not G2,then i wish they would fix FPrime to work well with 9.6.I do constant texture checking on my models and FPrime is the way.

FPrime update is coming. It has been written.

monfoodoo

05-05-2009, 05:48 PM

Excellent!Now i won't be able to sleep at night till the update.

IMI

05-05-2009, 06:02 PM

Don't get too excited.
FPrime will not be able to work correctly with the material nodes at all, period, ever, no way, no how, no chance, due to the way those nodes require a pre-pass to render correctly, which isn't available to FPrime.

Sensei of TrueArt explained it to me in a thread here. I may have the details a little wrong, but the end result is the same - no FPrime for rendering material nodes in LW 9.x ever, period, no matter what. It's simply not possible. The best you can hope for with 9.6 and FPrime is that it stops crashing. And there's reason to believe it may have volumetrics soon...

But this is why we need to hope that CORE has its own built-in FPrime-esque preview renderer... so we don't wait for months and months for a 3rd party developer to create a working version of a plugin for a new point release in LightWave. Not just a preview renderer, but lots of other things too, like an improved FFX...

jasonwestmas

05-05-2009, 06:19 PM

Not all the material nodes use pre-process in 9.6 do they? I was disappointed by this as well when Fast skin, Sigma2 and the new SSS nodes were released.

hrgiger

05-05-2009, 07:04 PM

But this is why we need to hope that CORE has its own built-in FPrime-esque preview renderer... so we don't wait for months and months for a 3rd party developer to create a working version of a plugin for a new point release in LightWave. Not just a preview renderer, but lots of other things too, like an improved FFX...

I'm wondering if Worley is going to be creating an Fprime for CORE. Or a Sasquatch for that matter. Surely, Worley is going to jump on the CORE wagon.

hrgiger

05-05-2009, 07:05 PM

Surely, Worley...

Ooh, I was a poet and didn't know it.

IMI

05-06-2009, 02:00 AM

Not all the material nodes use pre-process in 9.6 do they? I was disappointed by this as well when Fast skin, Sigma2 and the new SSS nodes were released.

I can't remember completely now, to tell you the truth. I just recently installed a new motherboard in my main box, wiped my drives clean and reinstalled everything. The only version of LW I have installed now is 9.6 64 bit, and I'm not even worrying about FPrime, since it caused crashes half the time anyway. Yeah, it works with some things, but if you want a quick preview of, say, how your GI is doing, and just happen to have one of the "bad" nodes in there somewhere.... forget about it, LW goes bye-bye. So it turned out to be more trouble than its worth, IMO, for now at least.

And LW's render engine is really pretty quick these days, especially if you use it with limited region, it makes FPrime all but obsolete. From all I could tell though, if you use it with only the "old" surface editor, it still works just fine. Just have to be real careful what nodes you have in there, if you use any of them with FPrime.

But to answer your question, it seems to me the other material nodes such as dielectric didn't work right either.

mav3rick

05-06-2009, 02:03 AM

FPrime update is coming. It has been written.

yea it is cumming for about 4 months now

IMI

05-06-2009, 02:06 AM

I'm wondering if Worley is going to be creating an Fprime for CORE. Or a Sasquatch for that matter. Surely, Worley is going to jump on the CORE wagon.

As I've said many times before, I'm hoping CORE's eventual built-in preview renderer and hair solution necessitates Worley having to find some other direction to follow. ;)
CORE needs to be a complete app, and since all of the major apps worth their weight have their own preview renderer, CORE needs one too. And not something only fractionally useful like VIPER.
I do worry though that CORE 1.0 will come along with no preview and Worley will be right there to fill the gap with some COREPrime or something, and NT will decide, well, good, one less thing for us to worry about, and we will be forever dependent on Worley for such a feature.

mav3rick

05-06-2009, 02:08 AM

g2 works with 9.6 and fp

Sensei

05-08-2009, 01:23 AM

Don't get too excited.
FPrime will not be able to work correctly with the material nodes at all, period, ever, no way, no how, no chance, due to the way those nodes require a pre-pass to render correctly, which isn't available to FPrime.

Sensei of TrueArt explained it to me in a thread here. I may have the details a little wrong, but the end result is the same - no FPrime for rendering material nodes in LW 9.x ever, period, no matter what. It's simply not possible. The best you can hope for with 9.6 and FPrime is that it stops crashing. And there's reason to believe it may have volumetrics soon...

Well, that depends on particular node. If pre-process stage does fill cache, and regular stage, just read it, and interpolate samples, there will be problem, because interactive renderer have no pre-process stage at all (so it will have nothing to interpolate). But if regular process stage finds out that cache is empty and sends regular rays to fill gap- then there is no problem.

There is clicked Interpolated button, which turns on pre-process stage in node. And LW render is doing this pre-process, fills cache, and in regular render just read-only cache, that's why it's so blurred. But real-time interactive renderer have no this stage, so node cache is empty, but node sends rays like normal..

But this is why we need to hope that CORE has its own built-in FPrime-esque preview renderer... so we don't wait for months and months for a 3rd party developer to create a working version of a plugin for a new point release in LightWave. Not just a preview renderer, but lots of other things too, like an improved FFX...

If it'll be built-in then for any fix to it, you will be waiting a lot longer.. ;)

IMI

05-08-2009, 04:38 AM

Thanks for the correction, Sensei. :)
How does that do for the SSS material nodes and/or if you have GI enabled?

3dworks

05-08-2009, 05:22 AM

Thanks for the correction, Sensei. :)
How does that do for the SSS material nodes and/or if you have GI enabled?

truehair preview doesn't do GI afaik, correct me if i'm wrong...

Sensei

05-08-2009, 10:26 AM

How does that do for the SSS material nodes

Tell me which SSS node (there is couple after all), and how to setup all parameters (real details, I am not familiar with them), and I will try..

jasonwestmas

05-08-2009, 10:48 AM

Tell me which SSS node (there is couple after all), and how to setup all parameters (real details, I am not familiar with them), and I will try..

SSS2 and Fast skin have the best balance of speed and quality imo. Both have preprocessing.

IMI

05-08-2009, 01:26 PM

Tell me which SSS node (there is couple after all), and how to setup all parameters (real details, I am not familiar with them), and I will try..

I'm not sure what you're asking, Sensei. The SSS material nodes don't really have any set, standard parameters, since everything about them needs to be adjusted depending on what's in the scene, the size of the object, the size of the grid, the lighting, and so on.

Offhand I'd say that if you take an object, plug in one of the SSS material nodes like, say Sigma2 and render it and get a "scattery" F9 render and then duplicate it in your program, then it's likely working.

Adding GI of course makes a big difference, but only in the overall scene appearance. As far as I can tell the SSS effect in and of itself isn't changed simply through the use of GI. Although obviously any scene with GI is going to look more realistic if it's done right.

I could whip up and upload a simple object and scene if you'd like something to experiment on though.

IMI

05-08-2009, 01:30 PM

SSS2 and Fast skin have the best balance of speed and quality imo. Both have preprocessing.

SSS2 does preprocessing? I didn't think the shaders did that. Fast Skin is a material, while SSS2 is an SSS shader. Did you mean Sigma2?

Sensei

05-08-2009, 02:15 PM

Any node can pre-process. Not just materials.

jasonwestmas

05-08-2009, 02:17 PM

SSS2 does preprocessing? I didn't think the shaders did that. Fast Skin is a material, while SSS2 is an SSS shader. Did you mean Sigma2?

Yes, the SSS and SSS2 nodes both use Preprocessing to block out rays that are outside of the frame. Yes, I'm talking about the shaders that I plug into the diffuse channel. Can't turn the preprocess off, wish I could.

IMI

05-08-2009, 02:34 PM

Yes, the SSS and SSS2 nodes both use Preprocessing to block out rays that are outside of the frame. Yes, I'm talking about the shaders that I plug into the diffuse channel. Can't turn the preprocess off, wish I could.

Didn't know that, thanks. I don't even use the shader SSS nodes, pretty much just Sigma2 and Fast Skin materials when I want SSS. Fast Skin, in spite of its name, works pretty well for anything, not just skin. Depending on the settings, of course.

jasonwestmas

05-08-2009, 02:36 PM

I like SSS ALOT! Mainly because I like translucent materials. I'll even bake them to texture if it looks good.